Category Archives: Blog

Today someone needs to look at you, really look at you, take a good hard look at you and realize how truly valuable, and amazing, you are. Someone needs to look beyond the makeup, the clothes, the hairstyle or lack thereof, and see the light deep within you, that shines brightest in your darkest hours.

Someone needs to realize that you are beautiful inside, that you are worth buying flowers for, that you are worth making breakfast in bed for, that you are priceless. Someone needs to understand that you are complicated because of everything you’ve been through. It isn’t baggage. Those wrinkles and scars and stretchmarks are your badges of honor for surviving every single challenge that was thrown your way. Someone needs to get that the extra pounds you carry are hiding the brokenness, allowing you to survive. You have survived some pretty incredible stuff. You need a trophy, not judgement. Someone needs to forgive your little annoying habits, and feel how deeply and unconditionally you try to love everyone you encounter, even when it feels like you only get hatred and rejection in return. Someone needs to see you for your many talents, for the extra miles you’ve always walked, for the above and beyond you’ve poured into people who have used you and mistreated you time after time. Someone needs to decide to invest in you, rekindle that sparkle in your eyes, and make you realize that you truly do deserve the very best that life has to offer. And really there’s only one person on earth capable of loving you the way you truly deserve to be loved, only one who can make you feel appreciated, respected, and wanted, only one person on earth who absolutely gets exactly what it is you need, only one who can make that decision right now, and that is YOU!

The popularity of dream teams and fantasy sports leagues is proof that people want the best life has to offer. Our goals and ambitions are never to be mediocre or ordinary. We want to be #1, we want our team to be #1. To be successful, and achieve our goals, we have to be surrounded by a great team. Most people are well on their way to building a team that can help them make their dreams come true. For example, many women are loyal to their cosmetologists who regularly cut and style their hair, aestheticians who clean and groom their nails, and beauticians who select makeup and skin care products that complement their skin and tone. Most people have physicians such as dentists, doctors, and specialists who prescribe medications and treatments to assist with improving our physical health, and some have priests, preachers, or ministers to assist in improving our spiritual health. Some people also regularly visit psychiatrists or psychologists to improve their mental health. For those who are trying to succeed financially, they may have a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and a personal banker on their team. Some people may even have a lawyer on retainer to handle legal concerns. All of these are a great start to your personal dream team: the team that will help you make your dreams come true.

“Great ideas will have a much better chance at success when they are backed by a similarly great team” says Garrett Lauringson, Co-founder of GRAPPPLE. But how do we build our dream team, and who do we include. One mistake many people make is trying to surround themselves with people just like them. This can be a fatal mistake, because if everyone thought exactly like you, how would you come up with any new ideas? Creativity is inspired by people’s differences, not by likenesses necessarily. If you already know what you want out of life, what kinds of people can help you get there? If you don’t already have a clear roadmap to success, what kinds of people can help you discover what you want, rather than pushing their ideas onto you?

To build your personal dream team, look for people who have the same values and morals as you, but who are strong in the areas where you are weakest. Author John Maxwell often shares his story about becoming successful, saying that it wasn’t until he let go of the things at which he didn’t excel or enjoy that he truly was free to be all that he could become. Your team should round you out. In the same way that you can’t have a winning football team full of only quarterbacks (no matter how awesome each may be), you can’t have a team of clones of yourself to be ultimately successful. Everyone has talent in some area. Find your area, and build your team with strong players in the areas where you are weaker.

Add people to your team who push you, encourage you, and promote you, rather than those who you need to push, encourage and promote constantly. The effort should be give and take, not all giving, and not all taking. If you are the strongest player on your team, you’ve outgrown your team. In the same way that sports teams regularly trade players, from time to time you may need to trade players too. Your team will be ever-evolving, not stagnant. Remember stagnation leads to death, not growth.

Former football coach Lou Holtz said, “You’ve got to have great athletes to win. You simply cannot win without good athletes, but you CAN lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.” And that is true both in football and in life. Enlist a lifecoach as part of your team, and use them to help you select team players that will take your dreams and make them come true. A lifecoach can help you discover what you value most, where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and what steps need to be taken next to advance your team to the goal. Don’t try to go it alone. Build a great team, surround yourself with great talent, and watch your dreams come true all around you.

There is a time and a place for nurturing the “little guy” inside of you, and we all need that balance, that protection, and that sense of peace and comfort every day. We need to be able to come and go to that sanctuary of comfort and security, but we can’t succeed in living our dreams if we stay there in that place of smallness and never leave. At times, all people feel stuck in their smallness, and struggle to overcome those feelings. What makes the difference between those who stay stuck, and those who rise to greatness? Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple approach to rising up to our potential? Turns out, there is.

We all love to tell our story. There’s even a popular country song by Toby Keith that admits,

“I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about number one, Oh my, me, my, what I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see…”

People love to talk about themselves, and tell their own stories. But do others enjoy hearing our stories as much as we love telling them? What’s more, what are the stories we tell ourselves, and are they different from the versions others tell about us? Take a moment right now and consider what stories you tell yourself about yourself?

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a carefully crafted roadmap to our success, and all we had to do was execute the plan to make all of our dreams come true? Consider the person who has her life all carefully planned out. She knows exactly how much money she needs to earn each year to be able to retire when she wants to. She has carefully detailed the steps she needs to take to reach her goals. And she claims to be very happy with her plan. That’s what all of us want. We want a roadmap to success. We want a carefully constructed personal plan that won’t fail if only we execute Continue reading What Makes You Angry?→

There is something extraordinary about having a space to call your own, a space that “speaks” to your spirit, that makes you happy, and sparks your creativity. We all want to have a space that’s “ours.”

A great example of how early in life we desire a place of our own is in the story of a mother who was washing dishes and realized she hadn’t heard her toddler playing lately. She dried her hands and headed toward the play area to check on her little girl. The toddler was nowhere to be found. Frantically the mother started searching the house, and then the yard, calling the little girl’s name. She called the neighbors, and then her husband at work, and then the police in a panic. A police dog, enlisted in the search, kept barking at the hall closet near the front door to the house, and the police began to be suspicious that there were Continue reading Create Your Space→

So far in our series on the Triad of Change, we discovered that the first part of the triad is focus (what you think about) and the second part is language or communication (what you say to yourself or allow others to say to you). As Napoleon Hill once said, “Be on guard at the door of your mind and be careful what you allow inside.” In this article we will reveal the third Continue reading The Triad of Change-Part 3 of 3→

The first part of the Triad of Change we looked at our focus, or what we focus on. To obtain lasting change, we have to focus on (think about) things that are positive, rather than obsessing over negative things and the past. If you are always looking back at the past, you will stumble moving forward. Try walking while looking constantly behind you, and you will soon stumble or run into something. Whatever we think about or focus on is what we will become. So to make changes in your life, you have to first change that on which you constantly focus. If you focus on the fact that the last 3 times you applied for a promotion at work you were denied, your brain and body will respond negatively, and jeopardize your future chances of promotion, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don’t focus on the past, focus on the possible. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says in the title of his bestselling book, “Change your thoughts, change your life.”

We all have some area of our life that we would like to change, but sometimes it can feel impossible to create change that lasts. Most of us dislike change, and have a negative association with it in our minds. But change is necessary to success, and critical to growth. Without change, we become stagnant and stagnation leads to death.

Maybe you want to lose weight and finally get physically fit. Maybe you want to be completely debt-free, and financially independent. Or perhaps you just want a promotion at work, or a better relationship with a family member. Regardless of the type of change you desire, there are three components to creating permanent, lasting change Continue reading The Triad of Change-Part 1 of 3→

Many people who have heard about lifecoaching think they simply cannot afford to hire one. Historically, there were only a few individuals qualified to be a lifecoach, so these individuals were able to charge prices that only the wealthy could afford. With today’s technological advances, lifecoaching no longer requires a brick and mortal building with face to face meetings, thereby greatly reducing the costs. You can talk with your lifecoach over the phone, over SKYPE, via social media, or through a myriad of online resources. Today, everyone can afford to hire a lifecoach. But what does it cost? The short answer, of course, is that prices vary by coach. But the real question isn’t, “Can I afford to hire a lifecoach?” The better question is, “Can I afford not to?”

If you are living the dream, and you are independently wealthy, physically fit, emotionally sound, in perfect health, with nourishing relationships, a satisfying and enjoyable career, and live everyday wondering, “does it get any better than this?” then maybe you can afford to forego lifecoaching. But unless you are living the dream, you need a personal development (lifecoach) to help you take your life to the next level.

The beauty of lifecoaching today is that you can decide the frequency and duration of your sessions, select your own goals, and be totally in control. You now have the power to become all that you’ve ever dreamed of becoming. You can live your best life. You can become your personal best self. Start today.